Malaysian Medical News: keeping you up to date with news sourced from various online sites, put in one place for your convenience, with a searchable archive

Saturday, July 01, 2006

59 New HFMD Cases Detected In Sarawak

KUCHING, July 1 (Bernama) -- A total of 59 new cases of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) have been detected in Sarawak as at 10am Saturday, Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr George Chan said.He said 13 children were hospitalised but none of the cases were serious.There are 19 cases reported in Kuching, followed by Miri (16), Bintulu (10), Sibu (eight), Samarahan (three), and the rest from other divisions. Since the outbreak in Sibu in February, there have been 11,176 cumulative cases," he said in his daily update.With the new cases, there were now 28 people being treated in hospitals, said Dr Chan, who is also the State Disaster and Relief Management Committee chairman.He said the number of children warded since the outbreak in Sibu had increased to 2,268, with Sibu 691 cases reported, followed by Bintulu (315), Miri (306), Sarikei (253) and Kapit (156).For the past two months since the first HFMD case was detected in February, the number of new HFMD cases had been dwindling with an average of 30 to 50 cases per day.Last week, a two-year-old boy from Marudi became the latest fatality of the HFMD outbreak, prompting the state government to put on hold its decision to declare the state HFMD-free.The disease had claimed 11 lives so far including three cases confirmed as Enterovirus 71 (EV71) positive.